First up, Ace, the original GI JOE pilot. He dressed up in what looks more like a space suit than a flight suit and flies the Sky Striker, which is basically an F-14 Tomcat, the planes used in Top Gun if you don't remember. The Sky Striker was pretty awesome; it was over two feet long with swinging wings and missiles you could attach, though they didn't shoot. The plane and missiles were fairly accurate to an actual F-14.
As for Ace, he was in the TV show a few times in the first season of the Sunbow TV show. But his flight suit was light teal and gray and he had black hair and a full face mask when he flew, not the bubble helmet. His dialogue was mostly making bad poker puns.
He did get a spotlight issue of the comic book that was pretty awesome. He duels with Wild Weasel, the pilot of the Cobra Rattler. They dogfight for a long time, until both planes are just about junk. Then instead of killing each other, they salute each other and go their separate ways. Huzzah!
In 1989 they reissued the Sky Striker for "Night Force" with the body black and wings and tails dark green. I didn't have that but I got the Toys R Us reissue of that in about 1998. Maybe it's in a closet somewhere.
As for the ruthless terrorist organization COBRA, we have Alley Viper. He's basically an urban warfare specialist. And for some reason he's bright orange and blue. That'll totally blend into alleys!
I'm not sure if he appeared in the comics much but he did appear in the first miniseries of the DIC-produced cartoon in the late 80s. The handler of COBRA double-agent Scoop was an Alley Viper. Eventually Scoop had a change of heart and stuffed Alley Viper into a locker.
And there you go, we're 1/26 done!
1 comment:
that's one of the best issues of the comic. they always did too much snake eyes bullshit and not enough cool stuff. Alley Viper reminds me of some versions of Deadshot...don't know who came first. Guy sets up an ambush in an alley wearing bright orange and blue you know he's not scared of anything lol
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